Bova, Ben - Twice Seven

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TWICE SEVEN

STORIES BY

BEN BOVA

289-290, which constitutes an extension of this copyright page.

AVON BOOKS, INC.

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Strachan Published by arrangement with the author Visit our website at

http://www.AvonBooks.com/Eos Library of Congress Catalog Card Number:

97-94887

ISBN: 0-380-79741-0

portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S.

First Avon Eos Printing: August 1998

AVON EOS TRADEMARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. AND IN OTHER COUNTRIES,

MARCA REGISTRADA, HECHO EN U.S.A.

Printed in the U.S.A.

WCD 10 987654321

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that

this book is stolen property. It was reported as 'unsold and

destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher

has received any payment for this "stripped book."

To Judine and Terry

CONTENTS

Introduction: The Art of Plain Speech

Inspiration

Appointment in Sinai

Conspiracy Theory

The Great Moon Hoax or A Princess of Mars

Life As We Know It

Legendary Heroes

The Cafe Coup

Re-Entry

Shock In Trust

Risk Assessment

Delta Vee

Lower the River

Remember, Caesar

The Babe, the Iron Horse, and Mr. McGillicuddy

INTRODUCTION:

THE ART OF PLAIN SPEECH

It is the secret of the artist that he does his work so superlatively

well that we all but forget to ask what his work was supposed to be,

for sheer admiration of the way he did it. --E. H. Gombrich THE STORY OF ART

I agree with that statement--up to a point. The esteemed Dr. Gombrich may be totally correct when

speaking of painting or sculpture or even architecture, but when it comes to writing fiction. Sir Ernest and

I part company. In fiction, I believe, the true art is to engage the reader so intimately in the story that we

forget about the writer, for sheer involvement in the tale that the characters are weaving before our eyes.

Maybe I feel that way because I started out in the newspaper game (it's never called a business by the

workers in the field). Or maybe it's because I've spent most of my adult life working with scientists and

engineers. Or maybe it's because I care about my readers too much. Whatever the reason, I have

always felt that the writer should be virtually invisible in his or her fiction; the reader should be drawn into

the story, rather than forced to admire the writer's brush strokes.

Only after the story is finished should the reader be able to sit up and think, "That was an enjoyable

piece of writing." During the reading process, the reader should be so engrossed in the story that the

writer's art (or craft) is barely noticed, if at all. I have never felt that writing should be a contest between

author and the reader, a battleground filled with obscurity and arcana. I don't want my readers to

struggle with my prose. I don't want to impress them with how smart I am. I want them to enjoy what

I'm writing and maybe think a little about what I'm trying to say. Problem is, when you write clearly and

simply, without stylistic frills or rococo embellishments, some people think that you are not a "deep"

thinker or a "stylist."

Isaac Asimov ran into this predicament often. Critics could not fault Isaac on his knowledge or his

success, or even his earnestness or political correctness, so they belittled his style, calling it "pedestrian"

or "simplistic." Yet Isaac's style was the one thing that made him such a success, at least as far as his

nonfiction work is concerned. Other specialists knew their subjects in more depth than Isaac did. Isaac

had a tremendous breadth of knowledge, but in any particular field-be it cosmology or poetry, biblical

scholarship or even biochemistry--here were specialists who knew a lot more of the details than he did.

But it was Isaac's genius to be able to take any of those specialized fields and write about them so

clearly, so naturalistically that just about anyone who is able to read could learn the fundamentals of

Isaac's subject. That took style. And it was definitely not intuitive, the work of unreflective genius. Isaac

thought about what he did, every step of the way. He deliberately developed a writing style that was so

deceptively unpretentious and naturalistic that critics thought what he did was easy.

In fiction, the academic disdain for straightforward, honest prose has led critics to dismiss

Hemingway and praise Faulkner, although today we are seeing that Hemingway's work is standing the

test of time better than most of his contemporaries'. Maybe Hemingway was also influenced by his early

days of news papering We know that he deliberately developed the lean, understated style that became

his hallmark. He worked hard at it, every year of his writing life. Lord knows that no one has accused

the science fiction field of overemphasis on style. If anything, the accusations have been just the

opposite, that science-fiction writing is too pedestrian, too mundane. Yet the field has produced some

marvelous stylists: Fritz Leiber, for example. Alfred Bester. Ray Bradbury. There is a good reason why

most science-fiction is written in a plain, naturalistic, realistic style.

Out-of this-world settings and incredible feats may abound in science-fiction stories, yet the prose is

usually unadorned and straightforward. Why? Because if you want to make the reader believe what

you are saying, if you want the reader to accept those out-of this-world backgrounds and incredible

deeds, it is easier if the prose you use is as simple and realistic as you can make it. In science there is a

dictum: don't add an experiment to an experiment. Don't make things unnecessarily complicated. In

writing fiction, the more fantastic the tale, the plainer the prose should be. Don't ask your readers to

admire your words when you want them to believe your story. In my own work I have tried to keep the

prose clean and clear, especially when I am writing about subjects as complex as space exploration,

politics, and love. Those subjects are tricky enough without trying to write about them in convoluted

sentences heavy with opaque metaphors and intricate similes.

Then, too, there is the difference between the optimists and the pessimists. Somehow, somewhere in

the course of time, darkly pessimistic stories got to be considered more "literary" than brightly optimistic

ones. I suspect this attitude began in academia, although it is really a rather juvenile perspective:

teenagers frequently see the world they face as too big and complex, too awesome for them to fathom.

Healthy adults saw off a chunk of that world for themselves and do their best to cultivate it. That is the

message of Voltaire's Candide, after all. Even in the science-fiction field, pessimistic "downbeat" stories

are often regarded as intrinsically more sophisticated than optimistic "upbeat" tales. I suspect this reveals

a hidden yearning within the breasts of some science-fiction people to be Accepted by the academic

literary establishment.

That's okay with me, but such yearnings should not cloud our perceptions. It may be de rigueur in

academic circles to moan about the myth of Sisyphus and the pointless futility of human existence, but

such an attitude is antithetical to the principles of science fiction, which are based on the fundamental

principles of science: that the universe is understandable, and human reason can fathom the most intricate

mysteries of existence, given time.

Science fiction is a fundamentally optimistic literature. We tend to see the human race not as failed

angels but as evolving apes struggling toward god hood. Even in the darkest dystopian science-fiction

stories, there is hope for the future. This is the literature that can take a situation such as the Sun blowing

up, and ask, "Okay, what happens next?"* Does that make science-fiction silly? Or pedestrian? Or

juvenile? Hell no! It's those academic thumb-suckers who are the juveniles. In science fiction we deal

with the real world and try to examine honestly where in the universe we are and where we are capable

of going. In good science fiction, that is. As Theodore Sturgeon pointed out ages ago, ninety-five

percent of science fiction (and everything else) is crap. All that bears the title "science fiction" is not in

Ted's top five percent. But at its best, science fiction is wonderful. And it tends to be optimistic.

Because I try to write clearly and tend to believe that the human mind can solve the problems it faces, I

fear that my work is often regarded as simplistic, or lacking style, or less "literary" than some others'.

Such complaints are the price to be paid for writing plainly and basing fiction on the real world and actual

human behavior. One of America's first literary giants, Nathaniel Hawthorne, responded to the

accusation of writing without elegance:

I am glad you think my style plain. I never, in any one page or

paragraph, aimed at making it anything else.... The greatest possible

merit of style is, of course, to make the words absolutely disappear

into the thought.

*If you don't believe me, read Larry Niven's "Inconstant Moon." Or my

own “Test of Fire.”

So--here are fourteen stories that range from tragedy to buffoonery, fourteen tales from the future,

the past, and even from the timelessness of eternity. One of them is an outright fantasy, co-authored with

a friend and kindred soul. Another can be read as fantasy, although I don't see it as such. A few of them

might make you chuckle; all of them should make you think. Each story is written as clearly as possible,

with no unnecessary stylistic adornments. They may not be "Art," in Dr. Gombrich's sense, although I

think they are enjoyable. But you'll be the judge of that.

Naples, Florida

Introduction to "Inspiration"

Where do story ideas come from? That question, in one form or another, is the one most frequently

asked by young writers. Where do you get the ideas for your stories? Often, when it's ascience-fiction

writer they're questioning, they ask, "Where do you get your crazy ideas?" The "official" answer among

science-fiction professionals is, "Schenectady." With as straight a face as possible we reply that we

subscribe to the Crazy Idea Service of Schenectady, New York. Once a month they send us a crazy

idea--in a plain brown envelope, of course. The truth is, ideas are everywhere. The air is filled with them.

Pick up a newspaper, sit in a restaurant, visit a friend, and potential stories are unfolding before your

eyes. In fact, getting story ideas is the easy part of writing fiction. As Thomas Mann put it, "The task of

a writer consists in being able to make something out of an idea." I can't really tell you how I wrote the

short story, "Inspiration." The creative process is so largely unconscious that it's impossible to describe

the day-by-day, minute-to- minute choices and decisions that add up to a finished story. But I can tell

you how "Inspiration" was, well, inspired. Many academic papers have been written about the influence

of scientific research on science fiction, and vice versa. Whole books have been written about the

interplay between science and science fiction. It struck me that it might be interesting to try a story that

explores that theme. I did a bit of historical research. When H. G. Wells first published The Time

Machine, Albert Einstein was sixteen. William Thomson, newly made Lord Kelvin, was the grand old

man of physics, and a stern guardian of the orthodox Newtonian view of the universe. Wells' idea of

considering time as a fourth dimension would have been anathema to Kelvin; but it would have lit up

young Albert's imagination. Who knows? Perhaps Einstein was actually inspired by Wells.

At any rate, there was the kernel of a story. But how could I get Wells, Einstein, and Kelvin

together? And why? To be an effective story, there must be a fuse burning somewhere that will cause an

explosion unless the protagonist acts to prevent it. My protagonist turned out to be a time traveler, sent

on a desperate mission to the year 1896, where he finds Wells, Einstein, and Kelvin and brings them

together. And one other person, as well.

INSPIRATION

He was as close to despair as only a lad of seventeen can be. "But you heard what the professor

said," he moaned. "It is all finished. There is nothing left to do." The lad spoke in German, of course. I

had to translate it for Mr. Wells. Wells shook his head. "I fail to see why such splendid news should

upset the boy so." I said to the youngster, "Our British friend says you should not lose hope. Perhaps

the professor is mistaken."

"Mistaken? How could that be? He is a famous man! A nobleman! A baron!" I had to smile. The

lad's stubborn disdain for authority figures would become world-famous one day. But it was not in

evidence this summer afternoon in A.D. 1896.

We were sitting in a sidewalk cafe with a magnificent view of the Danube and the city of Linz.

Delicious odors of cooking sausages and bakery pastries wafted from the kitchen inside. Despite the

splendid warm sunshine, though, I felt chilled and weak, drained of what little strength I had remaining.

"Where is that blasted waitress?" Wells grumbled. "We've been here half an hour, at the least."

"Why not just lean back and enjoy the afternoon, sir?" I suggested tiredly. "This is the best view in

all the area."

Herbert George Wells was not a patient man. He had just scored a minor success in Britain with his

first novel and had decided to treat himself to a vacation in Austria. He came to that decision under my

influence, of course, but he did not yet realize that. At age twenty-nine, he had a lean, hungry look to him

that would mellow only gradually with the coming years of prestige and prosperity. Albert was

round-faced and plumpish; still had his baby fat on him, although he had started a moustache as most

teenaged boys did in those days. It was a thin, scraggly black wisp, nowhere near the full white brush it

would become. If all went well with my mission. It had taken me an enormous amount of maneuvering

to get Wells and this teenager to the same place at the same time. The effort had nearly exhausted all my

energies. Young Albert had come to see Professor Thomson with his own eyes, of course.

Wells had been more difficult; he had wanted to see Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart. I had taken

him instead to Linz, with a thousand assurances that he would find the trip worthwhile. He complained

endlessly about Linz, the city's lack of beauty, the sour smell of its narrow streets, the discomfort of our

hotel, the dearth of restaurants where one could get decent food--by which he meant burnt mutton. Not

even the city's justly famous Linzertorte pleased him. "Not as good as a decent trifle," he groused. "Not

as good by half." I, of course, knew several versions of Linz that were even less pleasing, including one

in which the city was nothing more than charred radioactive rubble and the Danube so contaminated that

it glowed at night all the way down to the Black Sea. I shuddered at that vision and tried to concentrate

on the task at hand. It had almost required physical force to get Wells to take a walk across the Danube

on the ancient stone bridge and up the Postlingberg to this little sidewalk cafe. He had huffed with anger

when we had started out from our hotel at the city's central square, then soon was puffing with exertion

as we toiled up the steep hill. I was breathless from the climb also. In later years a tram would make the

ascent, but on this particular afternoon we had been obliged to walk. He had been mildly surprised to

see the teenager trudging up the precipitous street just a few steps ahead of us. Recognizing that unruly

crop of dark hair from the audience at Thomson's lecture that morning. Wells had graciously invited

Albert to join us for a drink. "We deserve a beer or two after this blasted climb," he said, eying me

unhappily.

Panting from the climb, I translated to Albert, "Mr. Wells ...invites you ... to have a refreshment with

us." The youngster was pitifully grateful, although he would order nothing stronger than tea. It was

obvious that Thomson's lecture had shattered him badly. So now we sat on uncomfortable cast-iron

chairs and waited--they for the drinks they had ordered, me for the inevitable. I let the warm sunshine

soak into me and hoped it would rebuild at least some of my strength. The view was little short of

breathtaking: the brooding castle across the river, the Danube itself streaming smoothly and actually blue

as it glittered in the sunlight, the lakes beyond the city and the blue-white snow peaks of the Austrian

Alps hovering in the distance like ghostly petals of some immense unworldly flower. But Wells

complained, "That has to be the ugliest castle I have ever seen."

"What did the gentleman say?" Albert asked.

"He is stricken by the sight of the Emperor Fried rich's castle," I answered sweetly. "Ah. Yes, it has

a certain grandeur to it, doesn't it?"

Wells had all the impatience of a frustrated journalist. "Where is that damnable waitress? Where is

our beer?"

"I'll find the waitress," I said, rising uncertainly from my iron-hard chair. As his ostensible tourguide, I

had to remain in character for a while longer, no matter how tired I felt. But then I saw what I had been

waiting for.

"Look!" I pointed down the steep street. "Here comes the professor himself!" William Thomson,

First Baron Kelvin of Largs, was striding up the pavement with much more bounce and energy than any

of us had shown. He was seventy-one, his silver-gray hair thinner than his impressive gray beard, lean

almost to the point of looking frail. Yet he climbed the ascent that had made my heart thunder in my ears

as if he were strolling amiably across some campus quadrangle. Wells shot to his feet and leaned across

the iron rail of the cafe. "Good afternoon. Your Lordship." For a moment I thought he was going to tug

at his forelock. Kelvin squinted at him. "You were in my audience this morning, were you not?"

"Yes, m'lud. Permit me to introduce myself: I am H. G. Wells."

"Ah. You're a physicist?"

"A writer, sir."

"Journalist?"

"Formerly. Now I am a novelist."

"Really? How keen."

Young Albert and I had also risen to our feet. Wells introduced us properly and invited Kelvin to

join us. "Although I must say," Wells murmured as Kelvin came 'round the railing and took the empty

chair at our table, "that the service here leaves quite a bit to be desired."

"Oh, you have to know how to deal with the Teutonic temperament," said Kelvin jovially as we all sat

down. He banged the flat of his hand on the table so hard it made us all jump.

"Service!" he bellowed. "Service here!" Miraculously, the waitress appeared from the doorway and

trod stubbornly to our table. She looked very unhappy; sullen, in fact. Sallow pouting face with brooding

brown eyes and downturned mouth. She pushed back a lock of hair that had strayed across her

forehead. "We've been waiting for our beer," Wells said to her. "And now this gentleman has joined

us--"

"Permit me, sir," I said. It was my job, after all. In German I asked her to bring us three beers and

the tea that Albert had ordered and to do it quickly. She looked the four of us over as if we were

smugglers or criminals of some sort, her eyes lingering briefly on Albert, then turned without a word or

even a nod and went back inside the cafe.

I stole a glance at Albert. His eyes were riveted on Kelvin, his lips parted as if he wanted to speak

but could not work up the nerve. He ran a hand nervously through his thick mop of hair. Kelvin seemed

perfectly at ease, smiling affably, his hands laced across his stomach just below his beard; he was the

man of authority, acknowledged by the world as the leading scientific figure of his generation. "Can it be

really true?" Albert blurted at last. "Have we learned everything of physics that can be learned?" He

spoke in German, of course, the only language he knew. I immediately translated for him, exactly as he

asked his question. Once he understood what Albert was asking, Kelvin nodded his gray old head

sagely. "Yes, yes. The young men in the laboratories today are putting the final dots over the i's, the final

crossings of the t's. We've just about finished physics; we know at last all there is to be known." Albert

looked crushed. Kelvin did not need a translator to understand the youngster's emotion. "If you are

thinking of a career in physics, young man, then I heartily advise you to think again. By the time you

complete your education there will be nothing left for you to do."

"Nothing?" Wells asked as I translated. "Nothing at all?"

"Oh, add a few decimal places here and there, I suppose. Tidy up a bit, that sort of thing."

Albert had failed his admission test to the Federal Polytechnic in Zurich. He had never been a

particularly good student. My goal was to get him to apply again to the Polytechnic and pass the exams.

Visibly screwing up his courage, Albert asked, "But what about the work of Roentgen?"

Once I had translated, Kelvin knit his brows. "Roentgen? Oh, you mean that report about

mysterious rays that go through solid walls? X rays, is it?"

Albert nodded eagerly.

"Stuff and nonsense!" snapped the old man. "Absolute bosh. He may impress a few medical men

who know little of science, but his X rays do not exist. Impossible! German daydreaming."

Albert looked at me with his whole life trembling in his piteous eyes. I interpreted: "The professor

fears that X rays may be illusory, although he does not as yet have enough evidence to decide, one way

or the other."

Albert's face lit up. "Then there is hope! We have not discovered everything as yet!"

I was thinking about how to translate that for Kelvin when Wells ran out of patience. "Where is that

blasted waitress?" I was grateful for the interruption. "I will find her, sir." Dragging myself up from the

table, I left the three of them. Wells and Kelvin chatting amiably while Albert swivelled his head back

and forth, understanding not a word. Every joint in my body ached, and I knew that there was nothing

anyone in this world could do to help me.

The cafe was dark inside, and smelled of stale beer. The waitress was standing at the bar, speaking

rapidly, angrily, to the stout barkeep in a low venomous tone. The barkeep was polishing glasses with the

end of his apron; he looked grim and, once he noticed me, embarrassed. Three seidels of beer stood on

a round tray next to her, with a single glass of tea. The beers were getting warm and flat, the tea cooling,

while she blistered the bartender's ears. I interrupted her vicious monologue.

"The gentlemen want their drinks," I said in German. She whirled on me, her eyes furious.

"The gentlemen may have their beers when they get rid of that infernal Jew!" Taken aback

somewhat, I glanced at the barkeep. He turned away from me. "No use asking him to do it," the

waitress hissed. "We do not serve Jews here. I do not serve Jews and neither will he!" The cafe was

almost empty this late in the afternoon. In the dim shadows I could make out only a pair of elderly

gentlemen quietly smoking their pipes and a foursome, apparently two married couples, drinking beer. A

six-year-old boy knelt at the far end of the bar, laboriously scrubbing the wooden floor.

"If it's too much trouble for you," I said, and started to reach for the tray. She clutched at my

outstretched arm. "No! No Jews will be served here! Never!" I could have brushed her off. If my

strength had not been drained away I could have broken every bone in her body and the barkeep's, too.

But I was nearing the end of my tether and I knew it.

"Very well," I said softly. "I will take only the beers." She glowered at me for a moment, then let her

hand drop away. I removed the glass of tea from the tray and left it on the bar. Then I carried the beers

out into the warm afternoon sunshine. As I set the tray on our table. Wells asked, "They have no tea?"

Albert knew better. "They refuse to serve Jews," he guessed. His voice was flat, unemotional,

neither surprised nor saddened.

I nodded as I said in English, "Yes, they refuse to serve Jews."

"You're Jewish?" Kelvin asked, reaching for his beer. The teenager did not need a translation. He

replied, "I was born in Germany. I am now a citizen of Switzerland. I have no religion. But, yes, I am a

Jew."

Sitting next to him, I offered him my beer. "No, no," he said with a sorrowful little smile. "It would

merely upset them further. I think perhaps I should leave."

"Not quite yet," I said. "I have something that I want to show you." I reached into the inner pocket of

my jacket and pulled out the thick sheaf of paper I had been carrying with me since I had started out on

this mission. I noticed that my hand trembled slightly. "What is it?" Albert asked. I made a little bow of

my head in Wells' direction. "This is my translation of Mr. Wells' excellent story, The Time Machine."

Wells looked surprised, Albert curious. Kelvin smacked his lips and put his half-drained seidel down.

"Time machine?" asked young Albert. "What's he talking about?" Kelvin asked. I explained, "I have

taken the liberty of translating Mr. Wells' story about a time machine, in the hope of attracting a German

publisher." Wells said, "You never told me--" But Kelvin asked, "Time machine? What on earth would

a time machine be?" Wells forced an embarrassed, self-deprecating little smile. "It is merely the subject

of a tale I have written, m'lud: a machine that can travel through time. Into the past, you know. Or the,

uh, future." Kelvin fixed him with a beady gaze. "Travel into the past or the future?"

"It is fiction, of course," Wells said apologetically. "Of course." Albert seemed fascinated. "But how

could a machine travel through time? How do you explain it?" Looking thoroughly uncomfortable under

Kelvin's wilting eye. Wells said hesitantly, "Well, if you consider time as a dimension--"

"A dimension?" asked Kelvin. "Rather like the three dimensions of space."

"Time as a fourth dimension?"

"Yes. Rather." Albert nodded eagerly as I translated. "Time as a dimension, yes! Whenever we

move through space we move through time as well, do we not? Space and time! Four dimensions, all

bound together!" Kelvin mumbled something indecipherable and reached for his half-finished beer. "And

one could travel through this dimension?" Albert asked. "Into the past or the future?"

"Utter bilge," Kelvin muttered, slamming his emptied seidel on the table. "Quite impossible."

"It is merely fiction," said Wells, almost whining. "Only an idea I toyed with in order to--"

"Fiction. Of course," said Kelvin, with great finality. Quite abruptly, he pushed himself to his feet.

"I'm afraid I must be going. Thank you for the beer." He left us sitting there and started back down the

street, his face flushed. From the way his beard moved I could see that he was muttering to himself.

"I'm afraid we've offended him," said Wells. "But how could he become angry over an idea?" Albert

wondered. The thought seemed to stun him. "Why should a new idea infuriate a man of science?"

The waitress bustled across the patio to our table. "When is this Jew leaving?" she hissed at me,

eyes blazing with fury. "I won't have him stinking up our cafe any longer!" Obviously shaken, but with as

much dignity as a seventeen-year-old could muster, Albert rose to his feet. "I will leave, madame. I have

imposed on your so-gracious hospitality long enough."

"Wait," I said, grabbing at his jacket sleeve. "Take this with you. Read it. I think you will enjoy it."

He smiled at me, but I could see the sadness that would haunt his eyes forever. "Thank you, sir. You

have been most kind to me." He took the manuscript and left us. I saw him already reading it as he

walked slowly down the street toward the bridge back to Linz proper. I hoped he would not trip and

break his neck as he ambled down the steep street, his nose stuck in the manuscript.

The waitress watched him too. "Filthy Jew. They're everywhere! They get themselves into

everything."

"That will be quite enough from you," I said as sternly as I could manage. She glared at me and

headed back for the bar. Wells looked more puzzled than annoyed, even after I explained what had

happened. "It's their country, after all," he said, with a shrug of his narrow shoulders. "If they don't want

to mingle with Jews, there's not much we can do about it, is there?" I took a sip of my warm flat beer,

not trusting myself to come up with a properly polite response. There was only one time line in which

Albert lived long enough to make an effect on the world. There were dozens where he languished in

obscurity or was gassed in one of the death camps. Wells' expression turned curious. "I didn't know you

had translated my story."

"To see if perhaps a German publisher would be interested in it," I lied. "But you gave the manuscript

to that Jewish fellow."

"I have another copy of the translation."

"You do? Why would you--" My time was almost up, I knew. I had a powerful urge to end the

charade. "That young Jewish fellow might change the world, you know." Wells laughed. "I mean it," I

said. "You think that your story is merely a piece of fiction. Let me tell you, it is much more than that."

"Really?"

"Time travel will become possible one day."

"Don't be ridiculous!" But I could see the sudden astonishment in his eyes. And the memory. It was

I who had suggested the idea of time travel to him. We had discussed it for months back when he had

been working for the newspapers. I had kept the idea in the forefront of his imagination until he finally sat

down and dashed off his novel. I hunched closer to him, leaned my elbows wearily on the table.

"Suppose Kelvin is wrong? Suppose there is much more to physics than he suspects?"

“How could that be?" Wells asked. "That lad is reading your story. It will open his eyes to new

vistas, new possibilities." Wells cast a suspicious glance at me. "You're pulling my leg." I forced a smile.

"Not altogether. You would do well to pay attention to what the scientists discover over the coming

years. You could build a career writing about it. You could become known as a prophet if you play

your cards properly."

His face took on the strangest expression I had ever seen: he did not want to believe me, and yet he

did; he was suspicious, curious, doubtful and yearning --all at the same time. Above everything else he

was ambitious; thirsting for fame. Like every writer, he wanted to have the world acknowledge his

genius.

I told him as much as I dared. As the afternoon drifted on and the shadows lengthened, as the sun

sank behind the distant mountains and the warmth of day slowly gave way to an uneasy deepening chill, I

gave him carefully veiled hints of the future. A future. The one I wanted him to promote.

Wells could have no conception of the realities of time travel, of course. There was no frame of

reference in his tidy nineteenth-century English mind of the infinite branchings of the future. He was

incapable of imagining the horrors that lay in store. How could he be? Time branches endlessly and only

a few, a precious handful of those branches, manage to avoid utter disaster.

Could I show him his beloved London obliterated by fusion bombs? Or the entire northern

hemisphere of Earth depopulated by man-made plagues? Or a devastated world turned to a savagery

that made his Morlocks seem compassionate?

Could I explain to him the energies involved in time travel or the damage they did to the human body?

The fact that time travelers were volunteers sent on suicide missions, desperately trying to preserve atime

line that saved at least a portion of the human race? The best future I could offer him was a twentieth

century tortured by world wars and genocide. That was the best I could do.

So all I did was hint, as gently and subtly as I could, trying to guide him toward that best of all

possible futures, horrible though it would seem to him. I could neither control nor coerce anyone; all I

could do was to offer a bit of guidance. Until the radiation dose from my trip through time finally killed

me. Wells was happily oblivious to my pain. He did not even notice the perspiration that beaded my

brow despite the chilling breeze that heralded nightfall.

"You appear to be telling me," he said at last, "that my writings will have some sort of positive effect

on the world."

"They already have," I replied, with a genuine smile.

His brows rose.

"That teenaged lad is reading your story. Your concept of time as a dimension has already started his

fertile mind working."

"That young student?"

"Will change the world," I said. "For the better."

"Really?"

"Really," I said, trying to sound confident. I knew there were still a thousand pitfalls in young Albert's

path. And I would not live long enough to help him past them. Perhaps others would, but there were no

guarantees.

I knew that if Albert did not reach his full potential, if he were turned away by the university again or

murdered in the coming holocaust, the future I was attempting to preserve would disappear in a global

catastrophe that could end the human race forever. My task was to save as much of humanity as I could.

I had accomplished a feeble first step in saving some of humankind, but only a first step. Albert was

reading the time-machine tale and starting to think that Kelvin was blind to the real world. But there was

so much more to do. So very much more.

We sat there in the deepening shadows of the approaching twilight. Wells and I, each of us wrapped

in our own thoughts about the future. Despite his best English self-control. Wells was smiling

contentedly. He saw a future in which he would be hailed as a prophet. I hoped it would work out that

way. It was an immense task that I had undertaken. I felt tired, gloomy, daunted by the immensity of it

all. Worst of all, I would never know if I succeeded or not.

Then the waitress bustled over to our table. "Well, have you finished? Or are you going to stay here

all night?" Even without a translation Wells understood her tone. "Let's go," he said, scraping his chair

across the flagstones. I pushed myself to my feet and threw a few coins on the table.

The waitress scooped them up immediately and called into the cafe, "Come here and scrub down this

table! At once!"

The six-year-old boy came trudging across the patio, lugging the heavy wooden pail of water. He

stumbled and almost dropped it; water sloshed onto his mother's legs. She grabbed him by the ear and

lifted him nearly off his feet. A faint tortured squeak issued from the boy's gritted teeth. "Be quiet and

your do work properly," she told her son, her voice murderously low. "If I let your father know how lazy

you are..." The six-year-old's eyes went wide with terror as his mother let her threat dangle in the air

between them. "Scrub that table good, Adolph," his mother told him. "Get rid of that damned Jew's

stink."

I looked down at the boy. His eyes were burning with shame and rage and hatred. Save as much of

the human race as you can, I told myself. But it was already too late to save him. "Are you coming?"

Wells called to me. "Yes," I said, tears in my eyes. "It's getting dark, isn't it?"

Introduction to "Appointment in Sinai"

Although science-fiction is sometimes called the literature of prophecy, no science-fiction story

predicted that the first humans to land on the Moon would send live television pictures back to a billion or

so eager viewers on Earth. Of course, there will be live TV transmissions of the first people to set foot

on Mars. And maybe something more... Incidentally, this story is an example of using a "worst case"

scenario as the basis for fiction. Written before NASA's announcement in 1996 that scientists had

discovered what might be fossils of ancient bacteria in a meteorite that came from Mars, this story

assumes that no hint of life has been found on Mars by the time the first human expedition reaches the red

planet. That is an assumption I would be happy to see proved utterly wrong.

APPOINTMENT IN SINAI

Houston

"No, I am not going to plug in," Debbie Kettering said firmly. "I'm much too busy." Her husband

gave her his patented lazy smile. "Come on. Deb, you don't have anything to do that can't wait a half

hour or so." His smile had always been her undoing. But this time she intended to stand firm. "No!" she

insisted. "I won't." She was not a small woman, but standing in their living room next to Doug made her

look tiny. A stranger might think they were the school football hero and the cutest cheerleader on the

squad, twenty years afterward. In reality, Doug was a propulsion engineer (a real rocket scientist) and

Deborah an astronaut. An ex-astronaut. Her resignation was on the computer screen in her bedroom

office, ready to be emailed to her boss at the Johnson Space Center. "What've you got to do that's so

blasted important?" Doug asked, still grinning at her as he headed for the sofa, his favorite Saturday

afternoon haunt. "A mountain of work that's been accumulating for weeks," Debbie answered. "Now's

the time to tackle it, while all the others are busy and won't be able to bother me." His smile faded as he

realized how miserable his wife really was. "Come on. Deb. We both know what's eating you."

"I won't plug in, Doug."

"Be a shame to miss it," he insisted. Suddenly she was close to tears. "Those bastards even rotated

me off the shift. They don't want me there!"

"But that doesn't mean--"

"No, Doug! They put everybody else in ahead of me. I'm on the bottom of their pecking order. So

to hell with them! I won't even watch it on TV. And that's final!"

Los Angeles

"It's all set up, man. All we need's a guy who's good with the 'lectronics. And that's you, Chico."

Luis Mendez shifted unhappily in his desk chair. Up at the front of the room Mr. Ricardo was trying to

light up some enthusiasm in the class. Nobody was interested in algebra, though. Except Luis, but he

had Jorge leaning over from the next desk, whispering in his ear. Luis didn't much like Jorge, not since

first grade when Jorge used to beat him up at least once a week for his lunch money. The guy was

dangerous. Now he was into coke and designer drugs and burglary to support his habit. And he wanted

Luis to help him.

"I don't do locks," Luis whispered back, out of the side of his mouth, keeping his eyes on Mr.

Ricardo's patient, earnest face. "It's all 'lectronics, man. You do one kind you can do the other. Don't

try to mess with me, Chico."

"We'll get caught. They'll send us to Alcatraz." Jorge stifled a laugh. "I got a line on a whole friggin'

warehouse full of VR sets, and you're worryin' about Alcatraz? Even if they sent you there you'd be livin'

better than here." Luis grimaced. Life in the 'hood was no picnic, but Alcatraz? More than once Mr.

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TWICESEVENSTORIESBYBENBOVACopyrightnoticesforthestoriesinthiscollectionappearonpages289-290,whichconstitutesanextensionofthiscopyrightpage.AVONBOOKS,INC.1350AvenueoftheAmericasNewYork,NewYork10019Copyright1998byBenBovaInsidecoverauthorphotographbyEricStrachanPublishedbyarrangementwiththeauthorVisito...

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